


Never to Rule Over Him

by Faylette



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Demonic Possession, F/M, Guilt, Vague Inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:45:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faylette/pseuds/Faylette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If I was possessed by a demon, would you…”</p><p>“Please, don’t ask me this.”</p><p>A fill for: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/14317.html?thread=54421997#t54421997</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never to Rule Over Him

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the style I usually write in, so let's see how this goes. Criticism welcome!

_“If I was possessed by a demon, would you…”_

_“Please, don’t ask me this.”_

_“I think I know the answer.”_

_“I don’t think you do. It’s not that simple, and I… I would rather not think of it.”_

 

They are together beneath the soft heat of a declining summer sun, in the grass overlooking their wheaten fields. She wraps her long arms around Cullen’s shoulders, pressing her body against his back as he is seated, sinking her warmth into him.

“My love,” she coos, letting her hands slip past the collar of his shirt. The cold metal of the ring on her finger makes his skin tingle. “What would you say… to us having a child?”

He raises his head up, tilts it toward her. “You would like that?”

“Of course I would.” She laughs softly with her reply, sweeping her breath against his neck. “Don’t you?”

It was a desire he quelled when he took upon the duties of a Templar, if it had ever really existed in him in the first place. But as she shifted from the Inquisitor to his lover, the desire grew around his heart like a vine, wrapping around it with a singular need.

“I do,” he tells her. “More than I know how to say.”

“If you were to get me with child soon,” she says, binding him into her embrace, whispering into his ear, lips brushing against its soft lobe, “when spring comes, and the flowers are in bloom, you’ll hold our child in your arms.”

He needs no more persuasion from her honeyed lips. He wrests himself from her arms and turns around to take her into his, to kiss her, to feel her body with his greedy hands, to throw her body down against the earth and press himself down against it, to yank up the skirt of her kirtle and thrust into her as she moans his name needily into his mouth.

“ _Cullen._ ”

But it is empty. It is fruitless. _It is not real._

 

“Cullen.”

She still had her consciousness, and remnants of her will, even as her body was seized from inside of her. Quivery gasps left her throat as drops of blood cascaded down to her chest, out of the shallow wounds her trembling hands inflicted. She held the blade against her the front of her neck, pressing against the vein that she is forbidden to sever. The demon would not have its vessel spill out its life before it could partake of it herself. It would have been senseless.

“Please,” she cried, still futilely trying to drive the knife into her flesh. “Cullen. _Please._ ”

This was what he trained for all those years in beneath the yoke of the Order: to protect the world from mages, to protect mages from themselves, to bear the onus of mercy. Her bloodshot eyes were open wide, unblinking, boring into him, begging him to bring her to her end. His heart beat heavy in his ears. Every part of him was chilled to the bone, frozen in place. It was not real. It couldn't have been real.

“Do it,” she pleaded. She needed him to. “Before I…”

 _I will not let her become one of one of them. I will not. I will not._ He howled the words in his head over and over again to drown out every other thought, every other doubt, every other sound. _I will not. I will not._ His hands wrapped around hers, taking hold of the knife in her shaking hands, almost stilling them with his own strength. The smallest trace of fear dissolved in her face, the smallest smile pinched up her tear-soaked cheeks, as he held the promise of respite before her. _I will not._ She emanated wordless thank yous, even as she gasped in unspeakable pain. She would never experience a kindness greater than this.

_I will not._

Then he began to pluck her fingers away from the knife, loosening her rigid grip on the blade’s handle. It was methodical, one digit after the other, using no more strength than was necessary, until it fell helplessly with a metallic clang against the floor. She cried out incomprehensibly, desperately, hopelessly.

“I am sorry,” he choked the words out. He kept his eyes downcast. He could not go back, could not bring himself to, could not face any life or any death without her. He could not bear to see the look on her face after what he had done. “I am so sorry.”

_Weak. So weak._

He might have blacked out then. His mind might have sent his whole body into shock. He does not know what happened right after he betrayed her, but when his consciousness returned, she was there, calm and whole, holding him tight, wiping away his tears, speaking to him sweetly, giving him the words he desired most.

 

“I love you, Cullen,” she tells him as she lazes beside him in the grass, her chest puffing and her face all rosy and blissful. Her hopeful hand is settled upon her belly, rising up and down with the rhythm of her breath.

He returns her love, tastes her name on his tongue, runs his fingers through her hair.

She props herself up on her side, pulling her body just over his to kiss him, lingering upon his lips until she is sated. When the kiss finally ends, and their eyes open and meet, she smiles at him, caressing his stubbled cheek. And she promises that same promise again, his greatest comfort.

He knows, or rather he once knew, of the snares these demons have at their disposal — the ways they warp reality, the insidious traps they set for their prey, how simple it can be for them to trick even the most disciplined Templar if they’ve a single desire to exploit. And yet the creature had no need for trickery.

Cullen allowed this.

“Nothing will ever take me away from you, my love," she swears.

It is empty. It is fruitless. But it is as real as he needs it to be.


End file.
